Bass Week 2025: Ned Rig Spectrums–The Genre Expands

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It was the I-motion technique that pushed me over the edge. No movement except forward. Jigheads and even a crankbait without wiggle, shimmy, or jerk. You can’t find the Jackall Seira Minnow (except occasionally on eBay), but the plastic I-Shad is back on the market and doing well. Take one look at it and it’s tough to believe that the design is over 15 years old.

While most anglers connect the Ned rig with the Z-Man TRD or the original cut-in-half Strike King Zero, the genre has expanded to include softplastics under 3 inches long—tiny craws, creatures, minnows, worms, and other molds. To no one’s surprise, these designs also attract bass and panfish by the dozens. The I-Shad is available in a 2.8-inch version, so it fits the traditional Ned-rig bill.

More than the bait, it’s the weight. A plastic lure of any size, shape, or tail trend downward if not balanced with the right amount of lead, tungsten, or zinc. In most cases this is a 1/16-ounce jig that is the core of the Midwest Finesse presentations covered in this magazine through the writings of Ned Kehde and others.

Although counterintuitive to most anglers, the plastic is irrelevant. That 1/16-ounce weight produces the correct “No movement except forward” goal that was always essential to the original I-motion technique. The bait suspends more than it dives and that’s the key. If it’s given slack, it sinks not like a rock, but like an earthworm tossed next to the dock. We all know what happens to a slowly falling ‘crawler, in the end.

It’s the Weight, Not the Bait

I haven’t taken a standard nightcrawler and weighed it, but my hunch is that it’s close to 1/16-ounce. I would bet that a full Yamamoto Senko with an unweighted wacky rig hook is also in that vicinity. Continuing to expand the realm of similar baits and the classic Rapala Countdown Minnow is not far behind (sinks slowly with little wobble going forward, unless you bend the eye down slightly per Doug Stange). Spybaits have occasionally been connected with the I-motion technique.

Kehde’s fishing logs are still found online at in-fisherman.com. In a decade of reading his reports, 1/32-ounce jigs are only mentioned when a standard 1/16-ounce jig needed to be cleaned of algae every cast. I also find a 1/32-ounce jig can make for a great suspending soft-jerkbait presentation at times. The 1/32-ounce Z-Man OG Jig probably weighs exactly the same as an unweighted fluke on a larger bass hook.

The 3/32 should probably be used more around deeper sections of midwestern reservoirs (especially near the dam) but Kehde usually just has the patience for the 1/16-ounce version to drift to the depths. The only time I caught fish in an area and Kehde didn’t was at Osage State Fishing Lake, where I used an “ungodly heavy” 1/8-ounce jig on the steep dam. The three large catfish were a good fight, but didn’t warrant a click on Kehde’s bass counter.

One of the main tackle websites has a page devoted to Ned-rig tackle. It lists 104 styles of jigheads from 54 suppliers. Only a few (Z-Man OG, Z-Man Finesse ShroomZ, Owner Blockhead, Venom Ven-Rig, and Eagle Claw Pro-V) are offered in 1/32-ounce size. Half aren’t offered in the critical 1/16-ounce weight. Surprisingly, many of the sizes start at 3/32 ounce, meaning the company is trying to go light but not quite grasping that 1/16-ounce tipping point.

Just as important (and equally missed) is color. A juvenile bluegill has a touch of, you guessed it, blue on its side. The Z-Man OG is offered in blue. Kehde originally swore by the red color (a pumpkinseed has a red dot on its side) but only two or three companies currently offer a red version. If a company offers a color other than black or green (and this is less than 20 percent of the versions on the website) the third color is chartreuse or white.

If you want multiple colors on the same head without moving toward the crappie aisle, turn to the classic VMC Moon Eye Jig and Clam Drop Tg jig. Both companies have a crossover into ice fishing and offer multiple/contrasting colors on the same head in 1/32- and 1/16-ounce sizes with bass-oriented hook sizes and lengths.

Micro Options

The original Johnson Beetle Spin (and most crappie-sized tube jigs) are 1.5 inches long. Considered one of the original finesse baits, it seems tiny in comparison to the now-standard 2.5-inch Z-Man TRD. Realizing this, Z-Man started producing micro lures.

Slightly larger than ice-fishing plastics and more bassy than items in the crappie aisle, the lures filled a gap that anglers had overlooked. The Z-Man Tiny TicklerZ, Micro WormZ, Shad FryZ, and Micro Goat are good starting points. It’s easy to see how they differ from the standard TRD in more than just size, since the tentacles, ribs, and flappers add to the presentation as much as the size subtracts. The Jackall Elise is a similar 1.5-inch bait that adds a horizontal tail to slow the fall, as well as fiber side fins for realism. Eurotackle has been a player in the ice-fishing world for years, but their recent growth has been in the open-water usage of plastics shorter than 2 inches.

It’s the Z-Man Micro Goat that Nebraska State Kayak Tournament Angler of the Year Marty Hughes (kayakjak.com) used to catch 132 fish during the state championship tournament at Lake McConaughy. “I started with my standard neko rig but fish weren’t reacting to it. While the fish were clearly eating standard-sized 2.5-inch-and-larger crawfish, the smaller lure was a trigger,” he says. The 1/15-ounce Z-Man Micro Finesse ShroomZ jighead had no issues landing smallmouths up to 20 inches in shallow water.

One reason the micro Ned was the right choice was fishing pressure. “During the tournament, multiple people were fishing the dam as well as the exact spots I focused my fishing, so the fish had seen lures throughout the weekend,” he says. “On the second day of the tournament there were even more kayaks in the area.”

Just as impressive was that the water wasn’t clear. Hughes: “I have used Z-Man micro lures in water with as little as 1 foot of visibility with no issues. At McConaughy, the water had risen lately and had 2 or 3 feet of clarity.” To me, the micro Ned rig has found its place as a fishing tool for larger predators with a clear trigger: high fishing-pressure situations.

Hughes’ other addition to this story is the use of lightweight neko rigs as a suspended bait. Using a 1/16-ounce nail weight or lighter means the neko will have a no-feel mid-water-column retrieve that has more flop than a Ned rig but descends a bit faster than an unweighted wacky rig. Hughes’ favorite hooks are the Owner Sniper Finesse and the Berkley Fusion 19 Drop Shot hook, both in the 2/0 size. He makes his own nail weights in 1/16- and 1/8-ounce sizes and markets them through his website.

The size of the traditionally tiny Z-Man OG jighead overpowers the 1.5-inch Jackall Elise. The standard head size is larger in diameter than the nose of the bait and even with a #4 hook the bend is outside the length of the lure. The Z-Man Micro Finesse ShroomZ jighead is a step in the right direction and shows the tackle innovations needed to rig and fish Ned-sized lures.

Jackall promotes the use of a special kinked hook for the Elise. The Trap Micro is a #6 hook designed with an upward-facing eye to promote a glide-focused presentation. For weight, Jackall designed the Through Nail Micro Sinker system that uses tiny tungsten nail weights installed with a needle-style tool.

Mule Tackle Company starts with standard Ned-sized jigs and plastics but moves down from there. The 1.6-inch Donkey Tail Jr. and 1.8-inch Burro Bug plastics pair with jigs down to 1/80-ounce in six colors. Company founder Ethan Dhuyvetter explains the lightest jigs: “When you toss a jig into inches of water on a tiny creek it must fall slower than traditional situations or it passes the fish and hits bottom.” He also suggests, for smaller lures, is to try Phenix Iron Feather or Diawa J-Braid line “You can’t break 4-pound braid by hand, and these specialty lines cast perfectly with smaller lures,” he says.

The legitimacy of small and micro lures for tournament fishing is highlighted by the rise of the Bait Finesse System (BFS) of rods, reels, and line. Fishing a Ned-sized lure is now mainstream. Crappie anglers have been using small baits for years but they never had to cast a 1.5-inch plastic 60 feet for a cruising 6-pound largemouth visible on forward-facing sonar.

Rod and reels designs from Japan like Daiwa and Shimano led the way, but Lew’s, Abu Garcia, and others have done the work to develop gear that can throw light baits farther and still have the backbone to land a big largemouth.

Macro Finesse

With the jig weight the focus of the presentation, bait size can go the other way, too. Stange mentioned the “Beater Rig” (because it beats the Ned in many situations). I call it the Ronny Rig because my father can’t put it down on most trips. Stange’s Beater favorite, the 3.3-inch Berkley Power Swimmer, has a ribbed body that flexes perfectly to allow the paddle to drive multi-axis motion throughout the presentation. For me, the 3.5-inch Cabela’s/Bass Pro Shops Go-To Minnow in the SS Shad color is cast at some point every day on the water here in Kansas. Both versions are 50 percent longer than the standard Midwest Finesse offering.

The Berkley Powerbait Bonefish as well as the original B-Fish-N Authentix PulseR have even more action and do best when fished slow. A heavier jighead negates the slow retrieve because the lure goes down instead of forward. The 1/16-ounce Clam Drop TG and Berkley Half-Head jigs have #1 hooks that fit well with a 3.3-inch swimbait.

Larger swimbaits like the Berkley Champ Swimmer or the 3.8- or 4.3-inch Power Swimmer don’t roll as well with a 1/16-ounce head. However, their larger bodies still achieve I-motion on a 1/8-ounce head like the Northland Long Shank Fire-Ball (with all of the awesome Northland color combinations). A couple of underspins like the 1/8-ounce Dirty Jigs Tactical Bassin Mini Underspin and the Damiki Rig Underspin heads have light weights combined with hooks that are long enough to match with full-sized plastics. Another option is the All-Terrain Tackle Mighty Jig, which has a 2/0 long-shank hook in the 3/32-ounce size. Rig these larger lures on a standard 1/4-ounce (or heavier) head and they become cranking baits and the slow-rolling no-feel hovering ability disappears.

The new rolling/strolling/hover technique has also spawned jigheads that cross over into the realm of macro finesse. The Owner Range Roller and Queen Tackle LS Tungsten Rollin Strollin jighead have non-forward line ties that, while designed for forward-facing sonar, help put more shimmy into standard retrieves. The Core Tackle Hover Jig and TUSH Jig (The Ultimate Swimbait Hook) exemplify macro finesse: forward motion and glide instead of downward drop

The Core Tackle Hover Rig distributes its weight along the shaft of the hook as well as forward of the line tie. The rig started as a finesse presentation for shallow water and then took hold as a forward-facing sonar option for its ability to work semi-vertically without moving forward as much as a traditional weight-forward jighead. Designer and Bridgeford Major League Fishing Pro Matt Stefan observes, “Even before forward-facing sonar, anglers knew that a horizontal presentation about 5 feet above the fish was preferred. Even on a slack line, both the Hover Rig and TUSH jig designs achieve a horizontal presentation instead of the nose-down/tail-up from traditional ballhead jigs.”

Core Tackle Co-Owner and Fish The Moment (fishthemoment.com) star Johnny Schultz compares the two designs. “The Hover rig works best in shallower water or for suspended bass within 15 feet of the surface,” he says. “By reeling it slowly with the tip down, a small shake of the rod twitches the bait. I try to keep the bait within 5 feet of the surface of the water and at least 5 feet above the bass.” For comparison, “The TUSH works best when the fish are deeper than 15 feet but I still like to keep the bait well above the fish,” he says.

“I work the bait with my rod tip at 11 o’clock and glide the lure. These two rigs work on suspended fish, but also pull fish up and out of rocks, brushpiles, or grass.”

Schultz’s original breakthrough came with a 3/64-ounce Core Tackle Hover Rig with a 3-inch Basstrix Live Trix. Since then, he has moved toward using the Hog Farmer Spunk Shad, a point-tail plastic that is available in 3- to 6.5-inch sizes. Schultz’s size choice is simple: “In clear water I use smaller 3-inch sizes and with less than 3 feet of visibility I move up to the 5-inch and larger sizes,” he says. If you want more bulk, the team pairs the TUSH jig with a skirt for their Core Tackle Swim Jig.

Expanding the options toward shaky-head baits are the Missile Baits Ned Bomb (3.25-inch) and the Quiver Worm (4.5-inch and 6.0-inch). If a traditional 1/4-ounce or heavier shaky head bounces them on the lake bottom, the same baits on a 1/16-ounce long-shank jig float near the bottom.

At this point the 5-inch (but slender) Missile Baits Baby D-Stroyer is a tentacled bait that wafts through the water. When in the mood, try the 6-inch version. A Zoom Flying Squirrel is a creature bait that fits perfectly on a 1/16-ounce jig. Both resemble something stunned by the incessant Lake McConaughy waves, and Midwest Finesse no longer means small baits only.

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David Harrison is a multispecies angler from Lawrence, Kansas, and a contributor to all In-Fisherman publications.

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